E6: The Game Inside D&D

Werebat said:

I've been curious about how the "numbers" work out for E6 when it comes to how many magic items players accumulate, and how many encounters it takes to "level up", as compared to standard 3.5 D&D.

Well I ran the numbers last night.

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Werebat said:

Also, due to the nature of the epic feats I allow (essentially granting PCs gestalt status or potent late-level abilities shortly after reaching level 6), I assume 6+2 to equal level 7 in power, 6+5 to equal level 8, and one power level "bump" to occur per five epic feats after (up to roughly 11th level equivalent at 6+20).

Note that more typical E6 games will see a greater difference between their own stats and the standard 3.5 stats presented here. It is partly for this reason that I recommend using my own method for running E6 games (though everyone's mileage may vary).

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Oooooook...

I guess I've gotta ask, what exactly is it you're trying to do? You seem to have several things going on here and I don't get it.

You're probqbly not familiar with Upper_Krust and the work he did in figuring out a consistent approach to using the CR system. His work basically says that it takes 5 feats to equal 1 CR. Now, obviously feats vary in power and utility, but that's a base point for you.

2nd... Why are you messing with the level/wealth dynamic? Characters hit 6th level. Everything freezes at that point, the sole exception being that every 5k XP means a character gets a feat. Jacking up the wealth/items that people get is going to make it all go wonky. Characters should get what they get based on being 6th level. That's my take on it. The whole point is to _stop_ the constant inflation that's going on.

3rd, Xp. Now, if you want to do every 5k of XP=1 feat, there's no problem with that. When I did the math, I found that at the end you'd wind up with close to the same amount of XP spent as you would have collected getting to 20th level. Obviously the "timing" of it might seem off/different, but really it's not. See, 3.x is based on the idea of 13.33 encounters to level. In other words, whether you're 1st level or 15th level, it's expected that you'll get enough XP so that every 13.33 encounters you'll go up to the next level.

So really, tracking XP and all that other stuff is just needlessly complicating your life. Just say that every 12 - 14 encounters, the characters get a feat. Every 5 feats, consider them to be roughly 1 level higher. I say "roughly" because remember that they're not getting extra HP or saves, so you can have a bit of a "glass cannon" effect going on.

At the end of the day, how you run your game is up to you. If you're going to prsent the results of your E6 game, that's groovy but I'm personally not sure just how applicable your charts and everything reqlly are for everyone's game. Especially given that you admit quite early that you're messing around with the base. I do think it's good info for folks that are thinking of trying some of your modifications (like the increasing wealth).

Just my 2 cents man. If you're diggin' your thing, that's groovy. Just thought I'd offer a different perspective.

Scurvy_Platypus said:

Oooooook...

I guess I've gotta ask, what exactly is it you're trying to do? You seem to have several things going on here and I don't get it.

You're probqbly not familiar with Upper_Krust and the work he did in figuring out a consistent approach to using the CR system. His work basically says that it takes 5 feats to equal 1 CR. Now, obviously feats vary in power and utility, but that's a base point for you.

2nd... Why are you messing with the level/wealth dynamic? Characters hit 6th level. Everything freezes at that point, the sole exception being that every 5k XP means a character gets a feat. Jacking up the wealth/items that people get is going to make it all go wonky. Characters should get what they get based on being 6th level. That's my take on it. The whole point is to _stop_ the constant inflation that's going on.

3rd, Xp. Now, if you want to do every 5k of XP=1 feat, there's no problem with that. When I did the math, I found that at the end you'd wind up with close to the same amount of XP spent as you would have collected getting to 20th level. Obviously the "timing" of it might seem off/different, but really it's not. See, 3.x is based on the idea of 13.33 encounters to level. In other words, whether you're 1st level or 15th level, it's expected that you'll get enough XP so that every 13.33 encounters you'll go up to the next level.

So really, tracking XP and all that other stuff is just needlessly complicating your life. Just say that every 12 - 14 encounters, the characters get a feat. Every 5 feats, consider them to be roughly 1 level higher. I say "roughly" because remember that they're not getting extra HP or saves, so you can have a bit of a "glass cannon" effect going on.

At the end of the day, how you run your game is up to you. If you're going to prsent the results of your E6 game, that's groovy but I'm personally not sure just how applicable your charts and everything reqlly are for everyone's game. Especially given that you admit quite early that you're messing around with the base. I do think it's good info for folks that are thinking of trying some of your modifications (like the increasing wealth).

Just my 2 cents man. If you're diggin' your thing, that's groovy. Just thought I'd offer a different perspective.

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Thanks, these are all good questions.

Not really trying to "do" anything here other than provide some information. I know people in the past have asked about potential issues with treasure acquisition in E6 and what happens over the long term. I thought I'd explore that a bit to check out the truth of it.

I'm not familiar with UK's work per se, but I do understand and basically accept the premise that 5 feats are roughly equivalent to one level. The only thing I've really changed on that count is counting the very first two feats (and the three feats right after that) as each being equivalent to one level "bump" because of the nature of the feats I'm allowing. In short, I allow players to use those feats to "gestalt" themselves (essentially gaining full abilities of 6th level in two different classes), and gestalt characters are (by the book they come from) the equivalent of +2 to their power level. If you sift through this thread you can find an earlier post of mine where I explain my system in more detail.

As for wealth... If I'm reading you right, it is your opinion that E6 characters get NO treasure after attaining level 6? That doesn't sound right to me. I've never seen such an idea before. My assumption is that the keep on finding treasure as they would at any other time, and gain wealth per encounter at the average rate. For example, if I consider 6+10 characters to be the equivalent of 3.x characters of level 9, then their average EL will be 9 and they will gain average treasure rewards from those EL 9 encounters. At the very least, one would expect that they will collect magic gear from fallen NPC villains with class levels.

To this end, I didn't "mess" with the level/wealth dynamic at all, I just plotted out how it would be expected to run if the DM ran level-appropriate encounters with the average amount of treasure. Am I making sense?

My main points here, again, are that E6 characters (in my personal homebrew and, to a greater degree, in "standard" E6 campaigns) require more encounters per "bump" in power level than regular 3.x characters, which results in considerably more wealth per (power) level than the game expects.

I originally switched to awarding feats every 2,500 xp because my players were complaining that they didn't earn feats quickly enough, and when I ran the numbers I learned that it was going to take them far longer to reach 6+20 (the end of the campaign) than I wanted it to. In making the switch, I accidentally took a step in the right direction towards fixing the issue I had suspected and (with the data above) recently proved; that E6 characters will over time end up with a lot more gear than their power level expects.

I hope this helps explain what I was trying to do,

- Ron ^*^

Werebat said:

As for wealth... If I'm reading you right, it is your opinion that E6 characters get NO treasure after attaining level 6?

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No, it's just that they acquire wealth as though they're just 6th level.

Werebat said:

To this end, I didn't "mess" with the level/wealth dynamic at all, I just plotted out how it would be expected to run if the DM ran level-appropriate encounters with the average amount of treasure. Am I making sense?

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Basically, yeah.

Werebat said:

My main points here, again, are that E6 characters (in my personal homebrew and, to a greater degree, in "standard" E6 campaigns) require more encounters per "bump" in power level than regular 3.x characters, which results in considerably more wealth per (power) level than the game expects.

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Ok, _this_ on the other hand doesn't make sense to me.

If you're running the game normally, then encounters are going to be just as difficult, and XP as well as wealth is going to flow at exactly the same rate. [x] amount of wealth is handed out per level. Divide [x] by 13 (or whatever) and there you go.

I fail to see how E6 is suddenly changing the dynamic. Maybe I'm just slow.

Also, I personally don't why wealth would be increased just because of adding the feats. Remember that the "level increase" that's being given for every 5 feats is a bit of a shaky one; you can afford to bump the opposition up a bit, but not too much since characters aren't getting all the level benefits. Since the opposition isn't exactly scaling up significantly, wealth shouldn't be either.

Werebat said:

I originally switched to awarding feats every 2,500 xp because my players were complaining that they didn't earn feats quickly enough, and when I ran the numbers I learned that it was going to take them far longer to reach 6+20 (the end of the campaign) than I wanted it to. In making the switch, I accidentally took a step in the right direction towards fixing the issue I had suspected and (with the data above) recently proved; that E6 characters will over time end up with a lot more gear than their power level expects.

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And again I'm just not clear on what you mean. Do you mean they wind up with massive amounts of money at the end of 6+20? If you keep handing out gear and money as if they were leveling, then yeah... That honestly seems kinda obvious. Afterall, the game has continued on for an awful lot longer than they've been 6th level.

The thing is, up until level 6 money has to have been spent on something. Gear is kinda limited too; people keep swapping gear as they level because the new levels require higher powered gear. If there's no reason to upgrade, then yeah gear won't change and people wind up with extra gear.

I guess I'm just confused. Up until level 6, you've got expenses of one sort or another. Part of those expenses are upgrading gear, which is mitigated to an extent by treasure rewards. Once characters hit 6th level, they're still going to have expenses. If every single person in the group managed to have every single magic item they wanted/needed by the time they reached 6th, then A) I think you've been incredibly generous as a GM and B) You're going to have to figure out some reason for them to keep collecting money or at least something cool they can do with all the money they've collected.

I don't think this is really a new problem. GMs have always been trying to figure out how to get players to spend the money the get. Part of the desigof D&D is to simply charge money for stuff, forcing players to give it up; magic items, unique components for spells, healing potions, etc.

If the game is strictly about getting the biggest pile of shiny stuff, then I can see where some problems might pop up, but even then I'd expect it to takea fair amount of time honestly.

Are you doing some sort of ultra-low magic as well? I know that's a popular idea with E6 (although not one I subscribe to at all) and maybe that's where part of the problems are coming up. The less magic stuff there is to help act as a siphon, the more you have to work on siphoning it off yourself.

Maybe we're just talking about the same thing but from completely different perspectives and therefore we've addressed it differently?

Scurvy_Platypus said:

If you're running the game normally, then encounters are going to be just as difficult, and XP as well as wealth is going to flow at exactly the same rate. [x] amount of wealth is handed out per level. Divide [x] by 13 (or whatever) and there you go.

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I get the feeling we are both talking about the same thing in different ways, as you said.

First, to make this perfectly clear, when I listed the number of gps for each level (or epic power category for E6), I was using the number of gps to represent total treasure value (not a literal pile of coins). So, 19,000 gp might mean a +2 longsword, a suit of +2 armor, a +2 periapt of health, and a few potions of Fly. What you were saying at the end of your post made it sound like you thought I was literally talking about coins.

In my E6 game (and I think it's pretty typical this way), once the players reach 6th level, the average EL of their encounters goes up to 6. When they overcome an EL 6 encounter, they get xp for an EL 6 encounter (1800 xp divided by the number of PCs). This works out to an average of 450 xp per encounter for a party of 4 PCs.

In a by-the-book E6 campaign, where it takes 5000 xp to gain a feat after level 6, it would take about 12 encounters for these PCs to gain a feat, right? 450xp X 12 = 5400 xp.

After about 60 encounters, the PCs will be at 6+5, which by the book is about 7th level in power. They'll now be ready for their average encounter level to be bumped up to EL 7.

If you look in the wealth by level guidelines in the DMG, page 135, you'll see that at level 7, the average PC should have about 19,000 gp worth of treasure/gear (most players convert the vast majority of their treasure into gear IME).

In a standard 3.x game, a 7th level character would have had about 14 EL 6 encounters getting from level 6 to level 7. Each of these EL 6 encounters would have yielded an average of 2000 gp (according to the treasure per encounter table on page 51 of the DMG). Divided four ways among four PCs, that would yield about 500 gp per encounter for 14 encounters, or about 7000 gp earned from level 6 to level 7. Again, a look at the wealth by level guidelines on page 135 reveals that this is pretty accurate, as at level 5 most PCs would have about 13,000 gp (we'll assume they lose about 1000 gp between levels 6 and 7 to expenses and other stuff, leaving them with 19,000 gp at level 7).

Our E6 heroes, however, have had SIXTY EL 6 encounters on their way to 6+5, or about 7th level in terms of power. Sixty EL 6 encounters yielding 500 gp per PC each is a whopping 30,000 gp. Unless the DM starts awarding abnormally small amounts of treasure per encounter once the PCs hit level 6, they'll have somewhere around 40,000 gp in cash and equipment (13,000 plus 30,000 minus expenses) by the time they hit 6+5, or about 7th level in terms of power. But they'll be way over-equipped, which will skew their power level against the EL 7 encounters they'll be facing (the standard 7th level PC would have 19,000 gp in equipment and they will have about 40,000, over double what the game expects)

Am I making sense?

Over time, this discrepancy will increase as the PCs deal with many more encounters (and gain much more treasure) than the system intended them to on their way to the next power level equivalent.

That's really what I'm exploring here. How large is the discrepancy? I wanted to know. Admittedly, I'm using my own house rules as a benchmark, which is probably of less use to someone running a standard E6 game, but the overall conclusion is still there -- E6 characters end up being very overgeared for their power levels.

Is this a big problem? Does it break the game? That I don't know. Discuss if you will. But it is a reality unless the DM engages in some behavior such as lowering the treasure per encounter after level 6, which I have seen no mention of anyone doing in E6.

Am I making sense? Not being facetious here, just wanting to know if I'm getting my point across.

- Ron ^*^

Werebat said:

After about 60 encounters, the PCs will be at 6+5, which by the book is about 7th level in power. They'll now be ready for their average encounter level to be bumped up to EL 7.

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Werebat said:

If you look in the wealth by level guidelines in the DMG, page 135, you'll see that at level 7, the average PC should have about 19,000 gp worth of treasure/gear (most players convert the vast majority of their treasure into gear IME).

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Werebat said:

In a standard 3.x game, a 7th level character would have had about 14 EL 6 encounters getting from level 6 to level 7.

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Werebat said:

Unless the DM starts awarding abnormally small amounts of treasure per encounter once the PCs hit level 6, they'll have somewhere around 40,000 gp in cash and equipment (13,000 plus 30,000 minus expenses) by the time they hit 6+5, or about 7th level in terms of power. But they'll be way over-equipped, which will skew their power level against the EL 7 encounters they'll be facing (the standard 7th level PC would have 19,000 gp in equipment and they will have about 40,000, over double what the game expects)

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Ok, NOW I understand your point.

Werebat said:

Is this a big problem? Does it break the game? That I don't know. Discuss if you will. But it is a reality unless the DM engages in some behavior such as lowering the treasure per encounter after level 6, which I have seen no mention of anyone doing in E6.

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I personally ran an E8 game, so I didn't bump up against this in the same way.

Would it be a problem? Hmmmm. I actually do think that's something of a good question. Part of where the answer lies is in how the GM is dealing with magic items in their game (I think) and part of it is how the question, " What do you do when you hit max level?" is answered. If hitting 6th level isn't significant in any way, other than no more levelling for characters, then yeah I can see a definite problem.

I guess part of what I'm saying is, flip it the other way around. Once characters hit "Epic" in standard D&D, what is it they're doing or at least supposed to do? If it's just "hang out and kill more monsters" then I guess there's definitely a problem.

On the other hand, if they're supposed to be doing other stuff, then I think that it's taken care of. The simple answer is, yes ordinarily they would be over equipped but it's something of an apples and oranges thing.

Yes, they've moved up to "level 7". But as you also pointed out, they're 60 enounters tougher than a "normal" level 7 character, just without all the extra bits a level 7 normally gets.

At 12 encounters to level, that means the new "level 7" is really a level 11. Isn't this about the point where characters are kinda supposed to be wrapping up the usual sociopath in the sewers sort of thing and be on to more kingdom level stuff?

If an E6 game basically means "we still dungeon crawl but nobody levels" there might be some definite problems. On the other hand, if the scope/nature ofthe game continues to evolve (and the characters have basically just hit their peak in terms of physical capability) then I think it's not nearly the problem it might appear on first blush.

Ok, so for example... Take some books like the Taltos series by Steven Brust. The main character is an assassin and sure, he gets in fights and bumps people off. The character doesn't appreciably change in terms of capability in the books. Effectively, you could say he's hit the level cap. But while fighting and killing does show up in the book, it's not just _about_ that. He's involved in political intrigue, there's folks trying to bump him off, etc.

Lots of media (novels, TV shows) feature characters that are at the top of their game. In theory, they shouldn't have any problem dealing with...whatever. What we enjoy seeing is how these experts deal with larger than life things and how they still _do_ get challenged even though they're at the top.

I think D&D suffers from a real problem of doing the level grind (kill monsters and take their stuff). Hitting the level cap basically means, "ok time to start over. We saved the world, it's done, new characters". There's not usually a lot of time given to just hanging out and _enjoying_ being at the top of your game; of course, most of D&D seems to be about being at the top of your game killing new and interesting creatures.

I know at first reading this doesn't seem to be particularly helpful, but I think it's something GMs need to figure out... what's your game about? Answering that is going to help figure out whether the encounter discrepancy is going to be a problem or not.

Thanks for taking the time to explain it, I think it's something that some folks might not really have thought about.

One of the limiting factors on gear in E6 is the caster level of 6; you can only get so many non-expendable items and the bonuses are not that high. IIRC, you are limited to plus one weapons and only one stat booster (strength) that fall under the cap.

So I'd expect players to seek to use wealth for other things over time, perhaps replicating the fortress building of earlier editions.

Votan said:

One of the limiting factors on gear in E6 is the caster level of 6; you can only get so many non-expendable items and the bonuses are not that high. IIRC, you are limited to plus one weapons and only one stat booster (strength) that fall under the cap.

So I'd expect players to seek to use wealth for other things over time, perhaps replicating the fortress building of earlier editions.

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IMC, we use the Magic Item Compendium. This changes a lot. There are many, many useful items available for every body slot, and adding new powers to existing items is a lot easier (and less expensive) if you use the rules included in that book (which I personally think to be a good idea).

Even without MIC, I think E6 allows for +2 weapons to be crafted, as well as stat enhancers up to +4 (all). Throw in a special material like adamantium and you're talking 12,000 gp plus just for a magic sword, so the money has places it can go.

Personally I simplified by ruling that CL for items could be lowered to 6th so long as no spell higher than 3rd level was used in the item's creation (and PC can personally craft with their 4th level spells if they've earned them with epic feats).

It's interesting to see what people do with E6 and what their assumptions are about what the PCs should be doing after level 6. IMC the PCs are at 6+10 and haven't really left the "psychopaths in the sewers" stage; in fact they are literally fighting fungus-infested kuo-toa in the caves under a city right now (the old Lord of the Scarlet Tide adventure from Dungeon magazine, if anyone remembers).

My next shot at E6 is probably going to be an adaptation of Pathfinder's Kingmaker, so it might fall more in line with what Scurvy_Platypus envisions E6 to be.

Personally I think lowering the xp required to gain an epic feat to 2,500 per is a good idea, in part because it alleviates the overgearing associated with E6. Of course my way of doing things is the best for everyone so everyone should switch to it right now.

- Ron ^*^

Votan said:

One of the limiting factors on gear in E6 is the caster level of 6; you can only get so many non-expendable items and the bonuses are not that high. IIRC, you are limited to plus one weapons and only one stat booster (strength) that fall under the cap.

So I'd expect players to seek to use wealth for other things over time, perhaps replicating the fortress building of earlier editions.

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And being the opinionated platypus I am, I gotta chime in too....

This limit is really more a function of "players can craft magic items", rather than something that has to apply to the entire gameworld.

For example, there's a fantastic book done some time back called, "The Artificer's Handbook". It approaches crafting magic items from a different perspective and adopting those rules (in the background) means that you've got a lot more possibilities that have opened up. Instead of wild-eyed mages crafting everything in sight, you'd have guilds that basically create high-end custom pieces for special clients. Governments that contract guilds, cursed items created by forced mageslave labour... all sorts of possibilitites.

The core of the rules are OGC and were posted for free here at ENWorld. Check them out here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/other-rpg-discussion/240200-artificer-handbook-update.html

I have always said and will continue to say, E6/E8 doe _not_ have to equal "low magic" or "grim and gritty". It's a popular user choice, but either through houeruling of one sort or another, or plugging in a new rules-framework like the Artificer's Handbook, you can live in a pretty magic rich environment. I'm a major fan of E6/E8 because I find the constant inflation that goes on in the game to be pointless and annoying. At higher levels it breaks the game down. But I allow spells up to and including Teleport and I'm a big fan of magic dripping everywhere, having spent 20 years doing the "low magic" thing and being fed up with it.

Werebat said:

It's interesting to see what people do with E6 and what their assumptions are about what the PCs should be doing after level 6. IMC the PCs are at 6+10 and haven't really left the "psychopaths in the sewers" stage; in fact they are literally fighting fungus-infested kuo-toa in the caves under a city right now (the old Lord of the Scarlet Tide adventure from Dungeon magazine, if anyone remembers).

My next shot at E6 is probably going to be an adaptation of Pathfinder's Kingmaker, so it might fall more in line with what Scurvy_Platypus envisions E6 to be.

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*cough*

Errr.. I don't think I actually said what I thought E6 was. Just that the way the game is structured, the expectations of many players, and the overall push of many adventures all expect that the game style changes in a particular way over time. IF people play/run the game in an "evolving" fashion, then some of the gold/item issues will take care of themselves I think. IF people run a frozen hack-n-slash (ie killing things and taking their stuff is the primary activity), then yes I think there can definitely be problems. That's mainly what I was saying, as well as pointing out that there are options.

Me? I think E6 is all about making the game yours. You spent the money on the books, you're running the game, screw what everyone else on the internet thinks is the "right" way to play and run the game, screw what the company says you should be doing. Do what works for you and your group.

Lot of folks came to E6 because they wanted to clamp player's choices so that "game ruining" spells like teleport weren't around, as well as liking the weaker levels of the game. I came to it because after a while it seems like a lot of those old computer rpg games where a character at 1st level is throwing spells that do 150 points of damage and then they eventually reach 100th level and are throwing thousands of points; just whack off some zeroes already. I've never held with the "zero to hero" paradigm that most gamers seem obsessed with, so E6/E8 is simply an easy way to "benchmark" the overall capabilities of spells, foes, and magic in the world and then get on with the groovy ass-kicking that my crew is showing up for.

Angel and Alias were great tv shows, despite the fact that they were mostly hack-n-slash. How E6/E8 gets used is a personal thing, but don't think I've got something against the sociopath sewercrawlers just because I call 'em as I see 'em.

Werebat said:

Even without MIC, I think E6 allows for +2 weapons to be crafted, as well as stat enhancers up to +4 (all). Throw in a special material like adamantium and you're talking 12,000 gp plus just for a magic sword, so the money has places it can go.

Personally I simplified by ruling that CL for items could be lowered to 6th so long as no spell higher than 3rd level was used in the item's creation (and PC can personally craft with their 4th level spells if they've earned them with epic feats).

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Okay, you are right, +2 weapons require a caster level of six.

Gauntlets of Ogre Power; CL 6th

But other stat boosters:

Amulet of Health; CL 8th

So, using the core magic item rules, you can't create most stat boosters. I saw this as a major advantage as it limited the Christmas tree effect. If you allow items of higher levels, I'd take a page from the epic rules and make the cost much, much higher.